long-long time ago (think end of last century) friend of mine take contract to automatize gas-pump stations on long gas pipe. Stations were here, with analog gauges and valves.
Offer from some "big" business with digital / connected gauges and motorized valves were too much for customer. He wanted much, much cheaper.
There were special modems, which use pipe as data line (think something like 150 baud shared between all stations).
So, solution implemented by my friend was like:
1) Electric motor with gearbox to motorize valves, it was cheap, as standard electric motors are cheap and customer has its own mechanical shop, so everything was cobbled in-house from standard of-the-shelf components.
2) Modem for each station (it was inevitable)
3) Laptop with B/W web cam on each station.
4) Software which can read gauges from webcam shots.
5) Software which transmit values from all stations to central station and allows to manipulate valves from central station (no automation here, 24/7 human operators)
Laptops and cameras were not cheap from personal point of view, but like x100 cheaper than special gauges and valves offered by gas-pipe equipment manufacturer.
Offer from some "big" business with digital / connected gauges and motorized valves were too much for customer. He wanted much, much cheaper.
There were special modems, which use pipe as data line (think something like 150 baud shared between all stations).
So, solution implemented by my friend was like:
1) Electric motor with gearbox to motorize valves, it was cheap, as standard electric motors are cheap and customer has its own mechanical shop, so everything was cobbled in-house from standard of-the-shelf components.
2) Modem for each station (it was inevitable)
3) Laptop with B/W web cam on each station.
4) Software which can read gauges from webcam shots.
5) Software which transmit values from all stations to central station and allows to manipulate valves from central station (no automation here, 24/7 human operators)
Laptops and cameras were not cheap from personal point of view, but like x100 cheaper than special gauges and valves offered by gas-pipe equipment manufacturer.
It was not called "computer vision" at this time.